[Dspace-general] Institutional Repositories vs Subject/Central Repositories

[Stevan Harnad]

On Mon, 9 Jun 2008, Beth Tillinghast wrote:

> Can you and others on this list speak to the issue of an institutional 
> mandate for researchers to deposit their output in the insitution's own IR. I 
> know some institutions are taking this position, but I have also read a 
> number of articles advising against this approach.

Please see the links I attached to my post, below.

See also:

http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Temp/UKSTC.htm
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/136-guid.html

and:

Harnad, S., Carr, L., Brody, T. & Oppenheim, C. (2003) Mandated online
RAE CVs Linked to University Eprint Archives: 
Improving the UK Research Assessment Exercise whilst making it cheaper
and easier. Ariadne 35.
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/Ariadne-RAE.htm

Harnad, S. (2006) Maximizing Research Impact Through Institutional and
National Open-Access Self-Archiving Mandates. In Proceedings of
CRIS2006. Current Research Information Systems: Open Access
Institutional Repositories. Bergen, Norway. Jeffrey, K., Eds.
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/12093/

Harnad, S. (2006) Self-archiving should be mandatory. Research
Information. http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/12738/

Stevan Harnad
AMERICAN SCIENTIST OPEN ACCESS FORUM:
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
     http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/

UNIVERSITIES and RESEARCH FUNDERS:
If you have adopted or plan to adopt a policy of providing Open Access
to your own research article output, please describe your policy at:
     http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php
     http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html
     http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/136-guid.html

OPEN-ACCESS-PROVISION POLICY:
     BOAI-1 ("Green"): Publish your article in a suitable toll-access journal
     http://romeo.eprints.org/
OR
     BOAI-2 ("Gold"): Publish your article in an open-access journal if/when
     a suitable one exists.
     http://www.doaj.org/
AND
     in BOTH cases self-archive a supplementary version of your article
     in your own institutional repository.
     http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/
     http://archives.eprints.org/
     http://openaccess.eprints.org/


> At 12:20 PM 6/7/2008, Stevan Harnad wrote:
>> Beth Tillinghast wrote on the DSpace list:
>> 
>> > I have just run into my first case where I am finding our IR in
>> > competition with a Subject Repository...
>> > I am wondering if others have run into this dilemma and can provide
>> > me with many good reasons why submission should take place in and
>> > institutional repository rather than a subject repository?
>> 
>> The dilemma has a simple, optimal and universal solution:
>> 
>> Direct deposit should be in the IR. SRs and CRs can harvest from IRs.
>> 
>> That's what the OAI protocol is for. Institutions are the research
>> providers. They are the ones with the direct stake in the record-keeping
>> and showcasing of their own research output, and in maximizing its
>> accessibility, visibility, usage and impact. Institutions are also in
>> the position to mandate that their own research output be deposited in
>> their own IR; funder mandates can reinforce that, and can benefit from
>> institutional monitoring and oversight (as long as they too mandate
>> institutional deposit and central harvesting, rather than direct central
>> deposit).
>> 
>> Convergent institutional self-archiving makes sound sense and scales
>> systematically to cover all of research output space, whereas divergent
>> self-archiving, willy-nilly in SRs and CRs is arbitrary and simply
>> produces confusion, conflict, and frustration in researchers, if they
>> need to deposit multiply.
>> 
>> (Before you reply to sing the praises of SRs and CRs, recall that their
>> virtues are identical if they are harvested rather than the loci of
>> direct deposit. The overwhelming benefit of IR deposit is that that is
>> the way to ensure that all research output is universally self-archived.)
>> 
>> THE FEEDER AND THE DRIVER: Deposit Institutionally, Harvest Centrally
>> http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Temp/Harnad-driverstate2.html
>> 
>> How To Integrate University and Funder Open Access Mandates
>> http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/369-guid.html
>> 
>> Optimize the NIH Mandate Now: Deposit Institutionally, Harvest Centrally
>> http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/344-guid.html
>> 
>> Stevan Harnad